It’s a problem when you choose a name for your company that, a few decades later, comes to mean something else entirely. The company Isis Pharmaceuticals chose the name of an Egyptian goddess associated with good health, only to find that the public’s knowledge of Egyptian mythology is weak, and that most people associate the name with a jihadist militant group. [More]

About a year ago, a plumbing company in Texas made the news for trading in their pickup truck for a new one. The real problem where the truck ultimately ended up: it went from hauling tools and pipes around Texas to hauling an anti-aircraft weapon around Syria for the terrorist group known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh. Now the plumbing company is suing the Ford dealership where they traded the truck in over the incident. [More]

What irritating problem do a fictional Labrador retriever, a pharmaceutical company, a spiritual bookstore in Denver, my old Honda Accord, and women and girls all over the world have in common? They’re all named Isis. After a terrorist group best known by that name claimed credit for the bombing of a Russian airliner and a shooting spree in the city of Paris, the group’s name has been in the news constantly. This isn’t working out so well for companies and people called Isis. [More]

It was only last year when a Belgian chocolate company called Italo Suisse decided to change its name. After all, 90 years after its founding, the business had no real connections to either Italy or Switzerland anymore. But yeah, if anyone at the company had realized there was another ISIS out there, that would definitely not have been the name it chose to switch too.